torres is beyond a repeat offender. he's in his own cateogry. he's a special case deserving of an extreme suspension. guys like him need trained into avoiding peoples heads. if only there were some sort of comparable player on the penguins that people could use as a basis for understanding this suspension.

oh wait

Last edited by shmenguin on Thu May 16, 2013 8:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Torres is a piece of trash that is a repeat offender and one of the dirtiest players in the game.

This "sentence" is likely a lot lighter for someone who doesn't have his history, especially after what he did to Hossa last year in the playoffs.

The days of trash like Dale Hunter deliberately injuring and knocking someone out of the playoffs for the hell of it or Bobby Clarke breaking someone's leg in world competition are over. Torres got punished because he's been nailed before this and no longer gets any benefit of the doubt. Tough.

I disagree with the decision. While I think Torres is a cheap shot artist, I don't see how initiating contact with the shoulder makes the head the intended point of contact. Shanahan is reacting to the player involved and the outcome of the play, both of which I disagree with. And I also disagree with the variable suspension. If it is a head shot and Torres is dangerous, should he come back sooner if the Sharks advance quickly? That too makes no sense.

columbia wrote:I don't know Torres' complete record....has he ever leveled a hit as ridiculous as Cooke on McDonagh (which didn't even pretend to be a hockey play)?

He has a lot of suspensions for head shots, including forearms to the head. The leaping hit on Hossa's head last playoffs is as ridiculous as any I know of. So I suppose that was slightly more of a hockey play than Cooke's elbow.

They really need to make this black and white instead of having a huge gray area left to judgment. Offense # on one axis, violation on the other (elbow, charge, boarding, stick as a baseball bat), contact on the other (head, back, shoulder, "intended head"). I know there is still judgment involved, but this would at least set a principle for all players.

Sadly, they likely want to take outcome into effect as well, but a dirty hit is a dirty hit no matter the outcome.

Idoit40fans wrote:Let the "repeat offender" status impact the length of a suspension, not the decision whether or not to suspend someone.

Shanahan seems to go out of his way to find a reason to suspend him for a shoulder to shoulder check. He seems to get creative with the claim that even though the shoulder was the primary contact point that it was the head that was the intended target. Just like Gryba's hit on Eller shouldn't have been a penalty or suspension, neither should this. I applaud the desire to make the game safer, but I think they go to far in these instances.

He aimed high and missed. A suspension is deserved and his history justifies the length. He glances the shoulder and the principal point of contact is the head. The video illustrates Torres took this path deliberately to hit high. He had the opportunity to take the lower risk hit and still dislodge the puck. He took the higher risk hit and is paying the price.

pfim wrote:He aimed high and missed. A suspension is deserved and his history justifies the length. He glances the shoulder and the principal point of contact is the head. The video illustrates Torres took this path deliberately to hit high. He had the opportunity to take the lower risk hit and still dislodge the puck. He took the higher risk hit and is paying the price.

Now, I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with your post. But for conversation, what does the bolded mean to the "next" suspension?

No injury. No talk. Fair or unfair?

Let's look at a "missed connection"

Dustin Brown takes a shot at Jaden Schwartz's head with his elbow, but misses...is this a can of worms that gets opened or is it a necessary thing to subdue this type of behavior?

This would keep Brendan Shanahan a little busier if he didn't just look at hits/attempts that invoked serious injury, yes?

But Torres didn't "miss" as in miss contact. He still made contact with the head. It's pretty obvious from the video what his intent was, and the fact that he still made head contact is why he's sitting games out.

He's aiming for, and makes contact with, the head. "Miss" in this case would be he didn't make initial contact with the head. Head contact was still made.

He clearly has enough time from this shot to line up a body-on-body hit, but he doesn't.

And this is actually the 3rd year in a row he's made a questionable hit to someone's head. Remember this?

pfim wrote:He aimed high and missed. A suspension is deserved and his history justifies the length. He glances the shoulder and the principal point of contact is the head. The video illustrates Torres took this path deliberately to hit high. He had the opportunity to take the lower risk hit and still dislodge the puck. He took the higher risk hit and is paying the price.

Now, I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with your post. But for conversation, what does the bolded mean to the "next" suspension?

No injury. No talk. Fair or unfair?

Let's look at a "missed connection"

Dustin Brown takes a shot at Jaden Schwartz's head with his elbow, but misses...is this a can of worms that gets opened or is it a necessary thing to subdue this type of behavior?

This would keep Brendan Shanahan a little busier if he didn't just look at hits/attempts that invoked serious injury, yes?

That's got to be the most obvious flagrant attempt at injuring another player that I've seen since McSorely v. Brashear. Disgustng.

I think you're taking that out of context. Torres missed or glanced his shoulder, and hit him in the head, which is the illegal and suspendable action.

If you do try and compare the two circumstances, you're talking about intent. Then you need to think about why the NHL is suspending these guys. The suspensions aren't meant as punishment, they're given out to prevent these types of hits from happening.

There doesn't seem to be much doubt about Brown's intent, but other than a trip, I don't see a penalty there.

I don't think Torres' intent was to hit him in the head, but he did. If we're suspending these guys to make the game safer, then there's no difference between intending to hurt someone or hurting someone while playing recklessly.

Then you get into the next step, which is can you fairly judge intent? While it may seem obvious, you really can't. You can only judge what actually occurred in each instance.